Toby Hagon

Toyota’s global president Akio Toyoda is on a rare visit to Australia to personally address employees, including at least 2500 who will lose their jobs as a result of the company’s decision to end local manufacturing by the end of 2017.

Toyoda, the latest in a long line of descendants of Sakichi Toyoda – who established the global car making giant – was to address media at 6pm eastern time.

Since his appointment as Toyota president in 2009 Toyoda has been credited with reviving the passion within a company known for producing bland cars - albeit many of them. His most notable new model was the 86 sports car, the first in years from a company with a proud history of sports cars.

It’s understood the address to staff was very emotional and, no doubt, difficult for the senior Toyota executives, which also included local boss Max Yasuda; Toyota is a fiercely loyal company and Australia was the first country it produced cars in outside of its home base of Japan.

Only once has Toyota shut a major manufacturing facility previously, a joint venture between it and General Motors. The former GM facility became a shared facility in 1984 before closing in 1984 and eventually being purchased by fledgling electric vehicle company Tesla.

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The imminent Toyota shutdown almost certainly means the end of tens of thousands more jobs for a supplier base that relies on economies of scale and – in many cases – proximity to the production line for survival.

Toyota had been crunching the numbers on its Australian operations, which produce about 100,000 Camrys and Aurions annually, about 70 per cent of which are exported.

However the recent release of the Productivity Commission’s preliminary report into the automotive industry would likely have swayed the manufacturing giant’s decision.

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The Commission painted a bleak picture for car making in Australia and recommending the winding back of most government support.

Given the assistance other governments dangle to lure car makers it makes local manufacturing very difficult, especially against neighbouring Asian countries – especially Thailand and China – which have lower wages and higher demand.

Toyota Australia has been saying for months it needed to pitch internally to win the right to produce a next generation Camry, a car that is also built in eight other plants around the world.